Sands scores ACT Haunted Hundred win, while Lessard takes title honors

There were no tricks up Erick Sands’ sleeves Saturday afternoon, but the short track veteran earned a little treat.

Sands closed out the Milton CAT American-Canadian Tour schedule at Seekonk Speedway with his second straight victory in the Milton CAT Haunted Hundred.

And while Sands nabbed his first win of the season on closing day, Raphaël Lessard became the first Canadian since 2008 to claim the Milton CAT American-Canadian Tour crown.

Lessard, the two-time and reigning Serie ACT champion, defended his points lead against three challengers to take the Tour’s $20,000 top honor in Larue Motorsport’s first full-season effort on the southern side of the international border.

Sands, meanwhile, squared off with Lessard’s teammate Will Larue for the duration of the feature, the two setting a torrid pace that taxed even the title hopefuls.

Defending champion Gabe Brown, riding a wave that saw him reel off three wins in the last five races to carve away a chunk of Lessard’s advantage, won the first of four heats to set the 31-car starting grid. Title longshot Jesse Switser, Jason Corliss and former Seekonk track champion Ryan Kuhn won the other three. But Lessard and two-time ACT Tour champ D.J. Shaw were bumped to the consi round to lock themselves into the lineup.

Switser’s heat win earned him sixth on the grid, best among the four drivers mathematically in the running. Brown, encumbered by a past winner’s handicap, could start no better than tenth. Shaw won his consi and gridded 22nd, with Lessard starting 23rd.

Sands and Larue rolled off on the front row, with Larue immediately going to the point. With podium finishes in two of his six ACT starts in 2025 and his first NASCAR Canada Series win back in August, the young Quebecer had eyes on his first checkered flag on American soil to round out a strong season. Sands, riding in second, had his hands full with Seekonk all-star Dave Darling.

Meanwhile, Brown struggled to move forward in traffic. Lessard slipped ahead of Shaw and began picking off cars, closing the gap to Brown at the edge of the top ten. A top-ten finish for Lessard would seal the championship deal no matter what last-race heroics Brown could muster.

But as the laps wore on, clean and green, the gap between leader Larue and the points challengers widened. Larue began working his way through slower cars, allowing Sands and Darling to close their own gap to Larue. And just past halfway, Sands caught the race leader, looking low and high for a clear path to the lead.

Sands sniffed the lead for the first time on lap 61, but it took a lapped car to clear Larue from his bumper and establish Sands as the pacesetter.

Darling began to threaten Larue for second, making his own move with 25 laps to go, but Larue clung to the runner-up slot, watching helplessly as Sands pulled away in traffic.

Lessard finally caught Brown, passing the defending champ as they risked going a lap down. A caution flag was the only thing that could spare Brown or Shaw.

But the final grains of sand sifted through the hourglass before either driver could rally.

Sands, who broke into the ACT winner’s club in last year’s season finale, held on to repeat as Haunted Hundred winner, topping Larue by 3.712 seconds in a race that took just over 23 minutes from green to checkers.

“Definitely the green to checkered really played in my favor,” Sands said, “to not let those other guys cool their stuff off and have a challenge at me. We worked super hard all weekend, just getting this car so it had plenty of drive, and kept the drive in the car the whole time.

“From what I’m hearing, no one else had what I had today.”

Sands might have made his move even earlier, if not for playing conservative in the early laps.

“It was gonna be hard to get around the 45,” he said. “I was gonna have to wait a little bit longer ‘til he wore out a little bit more to get around the bottom of him. I didn’t want to push the car, I just wanted to save it and save it and save it as much as I could, knowing that if we had a late race caution I’d have plenty to put on the go pedal.”

Larue matched his career best ACT Tour effort with his runner-up finish, though the run stands as his best finish in the United States. Darling persevered for third, the best Tour effort for the Seekonk native and multi-time track champion.

Modified ace Jake Johnson made his first ACT start in his family car since 2019, finishing fourth for his best series result since 2023. Kaiden Fisher finished fifth to end his second full ACT season on a high note.

Switser ended the afternoon where he started in sixth. Kuhn drove to seventh ahead of Devin Deshaies, with Stephen Martin and Seekonk alumnus Derek Gluchacki rounding out the top ten.

Sands is the tenth different winner in fourteen Milton CAT American-Canadian Tour points races this year, closing out ACT’s first season with entitlement sponsor Milton CAT. A dozen teams fielded a car in every race, some relying on others to maintain their owner’s points through gaps in the schedule.

With one race remaining, Sands had finally cracked the top five in the driver standings, matching his statistics from last year albeit in a more competitive field. Despite being well out of the championship battle, Sands sat ahead of Gluchacki, Fisher and Alexendre Tardif, all of whom had already won races.

Though most Halloween treats are short-lived, Sands plans to savor this one.

“I’m a winner all the way ‘til April,” Sands said. “So no one can take that away from me!”

Lessard ended the race in 11th, only the third time this year the St. Joseph de Beauce, Que. racer had finished worse than eighth.

But with his closest competition in his rear-view mirror, eleventh was more than enough to clinch the $20,000 Milton CAT American-Canadian Tour championship.

Lessard won twice, finished second thrice, scored 11 top-ten finishes and completed all but one lap to become ACT’s first Canadian champion since 2008.

Not that he made it easy on himself to lock up the honors.

“I didn’t draw that lucky number, I guess, because I couldn’t go nowhere,” Lessard said of qualifying. “The consi, we got my car a little better. We said, ‘We’re going to the consi, so why not try something else on the car to maybe make it even better for the feature?’ And it worked out.”

Starting deep in the field, the only thing working against Lessard was time.

“My car was very good,” he said. “I could make it work on the bottom way better than most around me, and I could pass there. I didn’t make it easy on myself, starting 23rd, but I was trying to keep a watch on the 47, the 60 around me, and play the game perfectly. But without any cautions, it made it a bit tougher, especially everybody got spread out a ton.

“But Seekonk is a fun track. I performed here well this year in both races. I think we had a car capable of a top three, but just couldn’t show it ‘cause of where we started.”

A budding driver development prospect a decade ago, Lessard departed the Northeast in his teens but returned to his native Quebec when sponsorship dried up during the COVID pandemic. Upon his return, Lessard paired up with Larue Motorsport, one of Quebec’s top Late Model teams. Lessard raced for the Larue family in the revived Série ACT LMS in 2023 and 2024, winning eight times and scoring back-to-back championships.

In need of a new mountain to climb, the Larue team turned its attention to the U.S.-based Tour for 2025. Alex Labbé won an ACT Tour feature for the Larue operation in 2013, but the powerhouse team had never attempted the full American campaign.

In their first year, faced with learning new tracks and building a notebook, Lessard and team pulled off the ultimate achievement.

“I think it got our team even better, way better this year, than running the same race track every weekend like Chaudière and Montmagny,” he said. “Now we have some notes, some different setups, some different race tracks. I think we got ourselves a lot better.”

Lessard is the fourth Canadian to earn ACT championship honors. Ontario racers Russ Urlin and Junior Hanley earned championships in ACT’s Pro Stock era. Patrick Laperle won the 2008 ACT Tour title, becoming the first racer from Quebec to hoist the trophy.

That puts the 24-year-old Lessard in elite company, and the achievement is not lost on him.

“It feels amazing to put my name on that list, for sure,” he said. “I grew up watching ACT, coming to Autodrome Chaudière, Montmagny and Ste.-Croix. The CAN-AM 200 was at Ste.-Croix and I remember watching Brian Hoar and Patrick Laperle and Karl Allard in that 48, and I remember how good these guys are and were.

“It’s just amazing, if I would have gone back to my eight-years-old self, watching these guys, I would have never thought I would be winning the championship.”

Lessard’s title also breaks a three-year streak for car builder Dale Shaw Race Cars. The Larue team switched to McColl Racing Enterprises chassis last year, winning six races and the Série ACT title last year, and capturing the first Milton CAT American-Canadian Tour crown for the Ontario-based shop.

“It feels even better to win with something other than what everybody else has been running,” Lessard said. “Like, the Dale Shaw cars are super good here, and I think running with a McColl…I’ve always loved these cars, but we didn’t have any notes coming into the season here, and we’re going to places we’ve never been with the car. And I think it proves, and it shows, how good the McColl chassis have been to us.”

He laughed. “Maybe some Americans are gonna make some phone calls to Mike McColl!”

Unofficial Results
Milton CAT American-Canadian Tour | Milton CAT Haunted Hundred
Seekonk Speedway, Seekonk, Mass.
1. (36NH) Erick Sands
2. (45QC) Will Larue
3. (52MA) David Darling
4. (15MA) Jake Johnson
5. (18VT) Kaiden Fisher
6. (25NH) Jesse Switser
7. (72MA) Ryan Kuhn
8. (64RI) Devin Deshaies
9. (45NH) Stephen Martin
10. (03MA) Derek Gluchacki
11. (48QC) Raphaël Lessard
12. (60BH) D.J. Shaw
13. (47NH) Gabe Brown
14. (31CT) Alexendre Tardif
15. (97NH) Joey Polewarczyk
16. (29MA) Joshua Hedges
17. (10MA) Andrew Gomes
18. (22RI) Mark Jenison
19. (27ME) Luke LeBrun
20. (04VT) Justin Prescott
21. (27NH) Cam Huntress
22. (66VT) Jason Corliss
23. (7MA) Jeremy Sorel
24. (08RI) Richie Murray
25. (33QC) Rémi Perreault
26. (8MA) Dylan Estrella
27. (2NH) Taylor Hoar
28. (35MA) Chase Belcher
29. (41QC) Zackary Fauteux
30. (73MA) Cole Littlewood
31. (77AZ) Brandon Lambert

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